Tag Archives | green health

Green Treatments for Common Health Conditions

Many families struggle with common health conditions they can handle without going to the hospital. While prescription medications are important, their costs can increase in the long run. It’s important to consider the alternative in this case: embracing “green” treatments. Understand that these treatments use natural approaches to address common health conditions you may have. This guide explains which natural treatments and ingredients could help set you up for a healthy life.

Aloe Vera

Aloe vera is among the plants with effective medicinal properties you can use to treat common health conditions. In alternative medicine, aloe vera can treat skin abrasion and alleviate joint pain. The anti-inflammatory properties in the plant are also vital in treating arthritis pain. Aloe vera is also important to people struggling with osteoporosis and low bone density. More than 52 million people are struggling with osteoporosis and low bone density in the United States alone. With aloe vera as an alternative treatment, addressing health conditions and enabling healing can be easy.

Chamomile

Addressing common health conditions naturally goes beyond the physical symptoms you see. It is possible to address your mental health issues in this way as well. Chamomile is a common medicinal plant used to treat anxiety and enable relaxation. The plant is also effective in reducing inflammation and swelling and treating wounds. When added to tea, it helps soothe the mind, making it possible for you to relax and concentrate more. Chamomile is a plant you can grow in your home and enjoy the related benefits. Use the flowers to get the expected medicinal results faster.

Traditional Diet

Besides breastfeeding, you effectively address dental health issues in your child by embracing and encouraging a traditional diet. A meal with plenty of fat-soluble vitamins and healthy fats is crucial to dental health. Did you know that one out of every three orthodontic patients in a dental care clinic is an adult? It is important to consider traditional diets as they help address dental health issues in adults and children. As a parent and homeowner, encouraging your family to eat avocados, pasture butter, fermented foods, and fish is important for their dental health. Reach out to nutritionists and dieticians to know more about vegetables such as broccoli, kale, and collard greens that contain high calcium content to add to your traditional diet and address your dental health issues.

Garlic and Ginger

As you look for ways to get the best natural treatment, know that adding garlic and ginger to your diet is beneficial. While garlic is widely used for cooking, the medicinal benefits are great. You can use the compounds found in garlic for antimicrobial, anticancer, and anti-inflammatory needs. Know that garlic is effective in lowering cholesterol and blood pressure. Ginger is effective in easing motion sickness and nausea. Like garlic, you can effectively use ginger as an anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant. Understand that you reduce medical needs and costs by embracing and encouraging natural health in your family.

Perilla or Stinging Nettle

The little-known perilla plant is effective in the treatment of people struggling with allergies. Note that this plant has antidepressant properties you can effectively use to alleviate asthma or allergic rhinitis symptoms. You can also use the plant to treat different skin conditions, helping you avoid costly prescription medications. While it is the belief that allergic rhinitis or asthma can spontaneously go away, medical reports and statistics show that the likelihood of positive results is only 1% per year. For this reason, embracing alternative medicine remains beneficial. You can conveniently use stinging nettle leaves as an alternative treatment to alleviate allergies or asthma. Studies show that you can benefit from stinging nettle’s antioxidant, astringent, and anti-inflammatory properties.

Embracing “green” treatment is an effective way to achieve your health objectives without spending much. You can grow most of the plants, vegetables, and herbs in the garden in your home and enjoy the benefits. By learning more about natural treatments, you easily address common health conditions and care for your family.

Green Your Halloween with Spot It! from Blue Orange Games

Spot It Halloween Green Halloween Games

We are huge fans of Blue Orange Games! We have a large media center in our family room and one whole side is full of games!

During October we fill a large jack o’ lantern bowl on our dining room table full of some of our favorite games and books. We play one every night while we eat dinner! And we still like to listen to the mister read spooky stories in the dark while eating pumpkin chocolate chip cookies! You can never be too old!

Right now, we love Sketch It!, Speedeebee!, and Flash!, they are great for the entire family, even the mister enjoys them!

Blue Orange Games has a new fun game right in time for Green Halloween – Spot It! Halloween. So fun! The Spot It! games are a fun matching game with an astounding concept: there is always one matching symbol between any two cards. To win all 5 mini-games, you have to be the quickest to spot it! Spot It! Halloween adds a twist to the traditional game with jack O’ lanterns, zombies, creepy crawlies, and other Halloween goodies. 

+ Spot It! Halloween $24.99
+ Blue Orange Games

5 Non-Toxic Ingredients for DIY Cleaners and How to Use Them

Many people with pets or kids have noticed that many of the ingredients in commercial cleaning products are not only harmful to people and animals but can be fatal. So, it’s no surprise that people are looking to remove these harsh chemicals from their homes and replace them with great, green, healthy alternatives. Fortunately, there are some great, green, affordable substitutes that can be used pretty much anywhere in your home and that you likely already have sitting in the pantry. Read on for my 5 favorite, non-toxic ingredients for DIY cleaners and how to use them in your home.

1. Vinegar
Vinegar is my all-time favorite non-toxic cleaner. It removes odors, stains, and grease and can effectively prevent mildew and mold when applied regularly to shower walls, sinks, and toilet bowls. Vinegar neutralizes pet odors like cat urine and will help keep colors from bleeding from a new pair of jeans or a red shirt if you soak the clothing item in vinegar for 30 minutes before washing or dump a cup or so into the washer with the detergent. To remove corrosion and chemical buildup from showerheads, soak the showerhead in vinegar overnight. Plain white vinegar should be used but if the smell offends you, you can add 10-15 drops of essential oil to your cleaning mixture. My favorite all-purpose cleaner, for bathroom, kitchen, and glass, is simply 1 part vinegar to 3 parts water mixed in a spray bottle. That’s it!

2. Baking Soda
Baking soda has virus-killing abilities and makes for an effective but gentle scrub for bathtubs, toilets, tile, and porcelain or stainless steel sinks. When I run out of Bon Ami, I pour baking soda in the sink, squeeze in half a lemon or pour in about ¼ cup vinegar, and scrub with a sponge or bristle brush. For a great toilet scrub, pour ½ cup baking soda into the toilet bowl and add 10 drops of tea tree essential oil and ¼ cup vinegar. The mixture will fizz while you scrub and cut through mold and grime while the tea tree oil disinfects. Tea tree oil and thyme oil are both great non-toxic disinfectants to be used in place of bleach. That said, just because they’re non-toxic doesn’t mean that you, your kids, or your pets should consume these products!

3. Castile Soap
Castile soaps are made from 100% plant oils so they’re safe and gentle but effective. While traditionally it’s recommended that wood floors be cleaned with pure water, I’ve added a few drops of peppermint or eucalyptus castile soap to a warm bucket of water and mopped our wood floors with the mixture to clean and freshen up the room. Our floors aren’t wax-treated, so please ask a pro if yours are before using anything but water on your wood floors. Castile soaps are great all-purpose cleaners, too. Simply mix a tablespoon to a ¼ cup with warm water for washing down counters, tile, windows, or a sink full of dishes. The term “all-purpose” really applies to castile soap!

4. Lemon
Lemon juice kills mold and mildew, shines harder surfaces, cuts grease, and deodorizes. A cut lemon can be scrubbed over the surface of a cutting board to sanitize it. Simply rub a halved lemon over the surface, let sit for 10 minutes, and rinse. Lemon juice can be added to vinegar cleaning mixtures to add a fresh scent and aid in cutting grease. Lemon juice is a great bleach substitute for washing laundry, too; just add lemon juice to the rinse cycle.

5. Essential Oils
Peppermint, tea tree and thyme oils are my favorite for use in home cleaning products. Peppermint oil eliminates offensive odors and is a natural pest deterrent. I have successfully used peppermint oil to eliminate mice in one of our sheds by placing cotton balls soaked in peppermint oil around the entrances to the shed and places where the mice frequented. Tea tree oil eliminates mold and mildew; a few drops can simply be mixed with water and sprayed onto shower walls (don’t rinse it off) and left to kill mildew and mold. Thyme oil is a powerful, natural disinfectant that has been said to kill and prevent botulism, e. Coli, listeria, and salmonella. Add a few drops to your vinegar all-purpose spray or use in the same way as tea tree oil in the formula above.

YOUR TURN: What are your favorite DIY, green home cleaning products?

4 Reasons to Eat Seasonally and Locally This Summer

If you shop at the farmer’s market, are a local CSA member, or frequent the “local” section of your grocery store’s produce aisle, you are well aware that fruits and vegetables come into and out of season. Depending on the climate where you live, you may have a wide variety of fruits and veggies to choose from year-round, or you may notice that summer is truly a more abundant season for produce. Wherever you live, eating seasonally has its benefits. If you’re not already doing so, here are four reasons to eat seasonally.

#1: Fresher, More Nutritious Produce
Produce that doesn’t have to travel long distances to get to you will be fresher when you purchase it because it’s been harvested more recently. Also, since seasonal fruits and veggies are harvested when they’re ripe and grown outside, in their natural environment, they’ll contain far more nutrients and flavor than produce that’s grown in greenhouses or prematurely harvested and required to ripen off the parent plant.

#2: Supporting the Local Economy
Farmers harvest and sell what’s abundantly in season. By purchasing seasonal, local food, you’re supporting local farmers and therefore your local economy (you’re supporting yourself in many ways when you think about it!).  By supporting local farmers you’re not only helping people but also encouraging sustainable, green farming practices because local farmers will plant and grow only what is suited to the soil and climate where they live.

#3: It’s Cheaper
Fruits and vegetables that are in season are more abundant and therefore end up being cheaper than foods that aren’t in season. Buying foods out of season means paying a higher price to cover the transportation of the food and growing fruits and veggies in artificial conditions.

#4: It’s Eco-Friendly
Buying produce that doesn’t require transportation means that less gas is being consumed and less exhaust is being emitted. Additionally, fruits and vegetables that have to travel long distances (like strawberries traveling from Mexico to Wisconsin in January) require far more chemical-ridden sprays and treatments in order to stay fresh long enough to make it to the grocery store. By becoming a member of your local CSA or buying at the farmer’s market, you’re buying directly from a local farm where transportation and preservation time is minimal—many times you’ll purchase produce that was harvested the same day as you pick it up.

As you can see, eating seasonally and locally has some amazing benefits! I love sampling seasonal fruits and veggies when I travel because chances are I’m visiting a state or country with a different climate, ecosystem, and sometimes season—there’s so much variety to be experienced!

YOUR TURN: What’s your favorite local, seasonal recipe for summer or fall?

The Perfect Green Cocktail for Summer: Frozen Organic Gin Lemonade

Looking for the perfect drink for your pool party! The mister whipped up a batch of his famous Gin Lemonade recently and I was reminded how much I love it this time of year! Be careful though, they are strong – one is all you need. Ha!

What you will need:
  • juice from 5 organic lemons
  • 1 1/2 cups of organic sugar
  • 1 1/2 cup organic gin (you can also use vodka)
  • 8 cups ice

Directions:

Whisk the lemon juice and sugar together until the sugar is completely dissolved. Add the gin and whisk again. Then, add the 8 cups of ice to a blender with the gin-lemon-sugar mixture and blend until smooth. Add lemon slices for garnish and enjoy.